People Who Are Left Out Of Various Groups

Social Exclusion in effect refers to people who are not included as part of the various networks that support the majority of us in our ordinary lives; family, friends, community and employment.  The risk of social exclusion will apply to those groups such as the poor, ex-prisoners, the homeless, people stricken by AIDS and others such as those with learning difficulties or those who are psychiatric patients in special homes.  This is in effect a very broad concept including not only deprivation but social isolation, problems in social relationships and failures in social protection.

In practice and in reality the idea of social exclusion can be contained in three main categories and contexts.

Firstly, exclusion is identified with poverty.  The lack of finance can have an effect on someone’s ability to participate in so called normal activities.

Secondly, there is the exclusion from the labour market with the term being identified strongly with long-term unemployment although there is certain research evidence that long-term unemployed people may not be excluded.

Thirdly we have the exclusion defined in its social sense.  In other words partly with alienation from social networks but also partly with the circumstances of stigmatized groups.